The present invention relates to a voice mail reply command system for use in office voice mail systems and personal telephone answering machines. More particularly, the voice mail reply command system is useful in circumstances where the person leaving the message asks a series of questions, and the person receiving the message wants to answer during the message playback.
Currently, there are a variety of systems for recording telephone messages when a telephone call is not answered. These systems include voice mail systems used primarily in offices, and telephone answering machines used primarily by individuals in their homes.
Telephone answering machines originally used analog cassette tapes to record messages but with the progress of digital technology many now use digital solid-state memories. These digital telephone answering machines allow their designers to be more creative by including the date and time the message was received ("date and time stamp") and allowing the user to delete selected messages without disturbing others, for example.
Recently, devices and systems that can find out the telephone number of the caller have been developed and are available in most areas in the United States. These systems are known as "caller ID" systems and can be used to store the telephone number of the caller.
When a user receives a message it is common for the message to have several questions or segments that require comment. Currently, the person receiving the message must manually take notes and initiate a second call to respond to the call, thereby making the process cumbersome, time consuming, and inefficient.